Tough Decisions
by Lady Emzebel
Summary: It seems that no one ever taught Luffy the meaning of "you can't have your cake and eat it too". Then again, it's not like he cares. Luffy/Ace centric. Happy Birthday Citrus Sunsceen!


Title: Tough Decisions

Rating: K+ for a wee hint of naughtiness.

Pairing: Luffy/Ace

Warnings: None really, just a tad of innuendo and yaoi. Holy Shiznic! For once it's not actually crack!

Timeframe: Before Luffy heads out from Fuchsia Island.

Disclaimer: One Piece isn't mine. Tell me something I don't know.

A/N: HAPPY BIRTHDAY CITRUS SUNSCREEN!!!

-----X3-----

Monkey D. Luffy might not have been the brightest tool in the shed but he was quite certain that none of the other average teenage boys his age had to go through _this_ much trauma on the day of his sixteenth birthday. Sweet sixteenth...hah!

Then again, Luffy wasn't exactly your average teen.

For one, he was made of rubber, courtesy a devil fruit consumed when he was only seven years old.

Secondly, he had dreams of becoming the next Pirate King.

And last, but most certainly not least, he had a crazed aging Marine for a grandfather. A grandfather who, it must be noted, was the very reason Luffy suffered so on this day.

Vice-Admiral Garp, being so busy with his job, was unable to rear his grandsons—Luffy and his older brother Ace—year-round on a daily basis and thus they were left in the care of his dear friend, the town mayor of Fuchsia Village. However, that is not to say Garp didn't pay them visits. Indeed, he made it his first and foremost priority to attend each of the boys' birthdays.

For this reason, the youngest D. brother probably would have found it in his best interests to take better care of hiding himself prior to falling asleep the night before his birthday. Had he done just that, he might have found himself waking up still inside the house.

As it was, he was marooned on a small rock out to sea, just within eyeshot of the island he lived on.

_Damn gramp's special birthday survival games. _

Thank god the Seaking lived on the west side of the island. Had it not, Luffy was sure he'd have been gobbled up before the sun rose; after all, he was renowned for being a pretty heavy sleeper, much like his narcoleptic brother, Ace.

"Aaaaace! Damn it! Why didn't you tell me gramps was coming?" Luffy whined to the mid-morning sky as he pouted miserably.

This was marine-training; the Vice-Admiral did it every year. He showed up in the middle of the night, kidnapped one of his grandsons, and abandoned them in the middle of a dangerous and/or life-threatening situation, all for the specific reason of teaching the boys survival skills and the will to live.

The real kicker was when Garp insisted it was all out of love. Be that as it may, both boys were sure there were other ways of showing affection without making them both absolutely miserable...not to mention half-dead.

The other tests certainly hadn't been as hard as this one. At least they'd all been on land. Thanks to his devil fruit ability, Luffy was a hammer, thus rendering him incapable of the ability to swim.

It would seem that Garp had suddenly realised what a liability this was, and therefore concluded that his youngest grandson should be tested to see if he could deal with a scenario in which he was stranded in the ocean.

So far Luffy had tried with all his might to stretch his arm back to grab hold of something on the island, and had failed miserably. Though his arm-span had grown considerably larger with each passing year, he figured (using his very own Luffy-logic) that it would be at least a decade yet before he could reach quite that far.

Luffy's stomach growled. He moaned pathetically, licking his salt-bloated lips and staring longingly at a seagull wheeling high above, just out of his desperate, grasping reach.

If he came back alive from this survival "game" Garp would reward him with his birthday present: the spoils of an afternoon-long barbecue, doubtlessly already in process, preparing the enormous amount of food he could inhale in no time.

If he didn't come back alive...well...that was that.

"Meeeeeat."

Images of thick, juicy steaks and succulent chicken drumsticks were just dancing before his eyes when his wandering mind grasped upon the subject of his older brother.

Ace.

Ace could help...were he actually here. Luffy's big brother was strong, and better yet, he wasn't a hammer. Had he been at Luffy's side, he could have swum them both back to shore...

Sadly, that was not the case.

"Wonder what he's doing right now..."

If he remembered correctly, he'd last seen his brother just before he'd retired for the night. Luffy had wanted to come to bed with him, twining his rubbery arms around his brother's neck and planting sticky kisses on his lips. Usually, that got him what he wanted within moments.

Well, Ace had returned the kisses gladly, but Luffy was shocked when he had then untangled himself from his little brother's grasp before departing with a cocky wink and a mischievous smirk.

"Tomorrow night, baby brother. Then you'll be sure to never forget _that _birthday present." He had said, peering seductively over his broad, freckled shoulder.

Luffy remembered watching his receding back, tanned and golden and utterly delicious, spotted here and there with freckles. His older brother went shirtless nowadays, a constant source of chagrin for the older, more respectable residents, though the girls loved it...as did Luffy.

Without Ace's shirt, one could fully appreciate the glory of his body; the rock hard abs, the rippling pectorals, the sharp angle of his collar bone, the crease of his hips, the sinful wisps of hair heading south from his bellybutton...

Luffy shifted from his uncomfortable position on the rock into another one when he felt his groin grow hot and tight. He frowned. He only usually got that aroused when he was missing his brother.

He exhaled noisily in exasperation as he clambered to his sandaled feet.

He'd have another go at reaching for the island. These erections were awfully cumbersome when Ace wasn't around to take care of them. Luffy would have done it himself...were he not so damn hungry.

The rubber boy stopped in the middle of winding back of his right arm as another thought struck him.

_Do I miss Ace more right now...or meat?_

He was stunned into silence when the answer that would usually come so easy to him eluded his grasp. Luffy was sure that he was missing Ace the most, after all he was his beloved brother-cum-lover, emphasis on the cum, but then again...he was really, really hungry.

On the one hand...meat. On the other...sexy big brother.

"Gaaaah! Why is it so hard to chooooosse!" Luffy whined, slumping back onto the rock.

He lay there for a few moments, turning the thoughts over and over in his head. Never before had Luffy's brain hurt so much, and there was a worrying stench of burning rubber.

_Meat...or Ace._

_Ace...or meat._

_Ace...meat...Ace...meat..._

Luffy stuck out his hands before him.

"Ace..."

He tilted his right hand slightly above his left.

"Meat..."

He tilted his left above his right.

And so it went.

Until Luffy violently sat bolt upright, almost hurtling himself forward into the ocean, a solution to his problem vividly portrayed in his head.

"What if Ace..." he asked himself slowly, "...let me eat steak...out of the small of his back?"

That thought in his mind's eye, not to mention the burning in his groin, spurred him to leap to his feet and launch his arm back towards the island, gasping furiously for a hand hold.

This time...he succeeded.

-----X3-----

Yes, I know it's not Luffy's birthday today but I'm not writing it for that reason. This is a birthday present for Citrus Sunscreen since...well...I can't exactly stick my hand through my computer to give a bow-wrapped prezzie to someone on the other side of the world...

...damn, someone needs to come up with a device like that. XP

Once again, Happy Birthday Citrus Sunscreen. I hope you like it even though it's not completely Ace-centric.

I'm not actually sure what to call this. It's not exactly fluff...and it's not smut. If you can come up with a categorization for this, dear readers, do let me know.


End file.
